Five Times Ratchet Blew Up and One He Didn't
by dytabytes
Summary: Stand Alone One-Shots // 5 times that Ratchet blew up, both literally and figuratively. // 4. Don't Stand Him Up
1. It's All Wheeljack's Fault

**Title:** Five Times Ratchet Blew Up (and One He Didn't)  
**Characters:** Ratchet, Wheeljack  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** 5 times that Ratchet blew up, both literally and figuratively.

* * *

**1) It's all Wheeljack's fault.**

Wheeljack happily poked a few wires back into place, while Ratchet looked on skeptically.

"'Jack, what are you doing to your welder attachments? If you jammed them again, you should have come to me!"

Wheeljack waved a hand dismissively. Ear-lights glowing a cheery cyan, he explained. "Oh, nothing's wrong, Ratch! I'm just fiddling with them!"

Ratchet raised an optic ridge in confusion.

"But there's nothing wrong with them?"

Wheeljack nodded thoughtfully.

"Yes, but I'm making 'em more efficient! See, if I change the way that the electrical input is translat-"

Ratchet cut in. "So you're experimenting. On yourself. For no reason. Except to stave off boredom."

Wheeljack rubbed the back of his head and glanced up at Ratchet, confused.

"Um... Yes, I guess you could put it that way." 

"And your experiment is liable to explode in your face and take a good chunk of your hand off with it."

"Well, the welder _does_ emit bursts of concentrated electricity to produce heat, so I suppose so?" Wheeljack idly pulled out a few loose wires and poked them together. Every now and then they'd spark, causing Ratchet to instinctively flinch away and prompting Wheeljack to coo and lean in closer.

"And the only reason you're doing this is the off chance that you might be able to improve ... something."

"Err... ooh, if I connected those two together..." Wheeljack pulled out his soldering iron and started using it on his wrist, attention diverted from his friend's questioning.

Ratchet twitched. Warning lights were starting to go off in his brain.

Wheeljack yipped as a cherry red fist clanged down on his helm.

"IS EVERYONE ON THIS PRIMUS-FORSAKEN SHIP _TRYING_ TO BLOW MY CIRCUITS?! BECAUSE, FRAGGIT, IT'S WORKING!"

With a snarl, the angry medic stormed out of Wheeljack's lab, leaving behind a confused, droopy-winged engineer who tentatively started sealing his wrist shut. It wouldn't do to actually blow up, not when Ratchet was going to be too upset to fix his hand back on if something happened.

Haha, you thought I meant literal explosions, didn't you? Well, there will be those, but they're not scheduled until later.


	2. Haha, That's Not Funny

**Title:** Five Times Ratchet Blew Up (and One He Didn't)  
**Characters:** Ratchet, Wheeljack  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** 5 times that Ratchet blew up, both literally and figuratively.

* * *

**2) Haha, that's Not. Funny.**

"Oof! There, that's out! Is that better now, Wheeljack?"

Wheeljack stood up, rubbing his aft and wincing.

"Yeah, much. Thanks, Ratch. What would I ever do without ya?"

When Ratchet failed to respond, Wheeljack turned around, confused, to find Ratchet staring in dismay at the object grasped in his pliers.

"Wheeljack... why was there-"

Slowly, comprehension started to dawn in the medic's optics.

"Oh no you _didn't_..."

Wheeljack's vocal resonators flickered once, twice, in consternation, then he fearlessly looked Ratchet straight in the optics.

"I have absolutely no idea how that got there."

"No idea. No idea?! How can you have no idea bout how you got a _potato_ jammed up your _tailpipe_!?"

"Uhm..."

Wheeljack's optics shifted to the right and his spoiler-wings slumped ever so slightly. The gig was up.

"Well, there was this article on the internet and the Twins-"

Ratchet abruptly cut Wheeljack off with a sweep of his hand.

"Stop. Just- just stop. I don't want to know."

The medic grabbed one of Wheeljack's hands, then plunked the well-cooked, foil-wrapped potato into the engineer's palm.

"Take care of that." A light gleamed in the medic's optics and an aggressive snarl made its way onto his face as he rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

"I'm going Lambo hunting."

Then, grabbing his trusty arc welder, Ratchet ran out of the medbay with a feral shriek.

"SIIIIDESWIIIIIIIPE!! TONIGHT YOU DINE IN THE PIT!!"

Wheeljack stood in the medbay, staring blankly at the wall and uncertain as to what he should be doing. He looked down at the potato in his hand with a resigned sigh.

"I guess it's just you and me now spud."

The next scenes have been removed for excessive violence and its consequences. It shall be noted, however, that Sideswipe was unable to pry the wrench out of his manifolds for two weeks. Additionally, Sunstreaker _still_ has arc-welder singes in places where the sun will never shine.

Wheeljack, however, did not learn his lesson about homemade potato canons, much to Ratchet's dismay.  



	3. Suffering the ConDescending

**Title:** Five Times Ratchet Blew Up (and One He Didn't)  
**Characters:** Ratchet, Wheeljack  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** 5 times that Ratchet blew up, both literally and figuratively.

* * *

**3) Suffering the ConDescending.**

"Fraggit!"

Laser-fire shrieked in the background as Ratchet ran over to the fallen Mirage. Starscream's cluster bombs had been powerful. The blue and white saboteur had a hole blown in the middle of his chest plate bigger than Ratchet's fist. The medic yanked the remains of Mirage's chest-plate off and dug his hands into sparking internal wiring without hesitation. Cursing, Ratchet pulled his fine welder out from subspace.

_Slag, the secondary fuel-line's been sliced apart. Gotta seal that before Mirage bleeds dry..._

Mirage's optics flickered when he felt someone's hands gently prying shards of metal and glass from his chest cavity.

"Agh! Wha-!"

Ratchet cursed angrily under his breath. Mirage's cooling fans were whirring swiftly with distress and he mech himself was trying to get up. Softly, Ratchet pushed Mirage back down, shushing him gently.

"Shh, it's just me. Ratchet. Frag, I thought you were in stasis-lock."

"hurts..."

Mirage whimpered, gurgling as leaking fluids spilled into his vocalizer. Ratchet ran a gentle hand over the mech's brow to soothe him.

"Yeah, I know it hurts, 'Raji. Don't worry, everything's under control. I'm just gonna offline ya for a little, okay? When you wake up, you're gonna be all patched up. This'll just be a memory..."

Slowly, Ratchet's other hand reached over and hit the internal switches that would send Mirage into stasis. The mech's optics flared briefly, then they darkened as he fell into peaceful oblivion with a sigh. As soon as he heard Mirage fall out of consciousness, Ratchet got back to work, sealing leaking coolant lines and pulling wires out to solder them back together.

It was the whistling that set Ratchet's warning sensor's to beeping. Optics widening, the mech turned to see Skywarp barreling down through the clouds with his missiles locked and loaded. There was no way that Ratchet would be able to move Mirage out of the way in time, not when the mech was still freely sparking all over the place.

So Ratchet did what any other medic would do.

He flung his body over Mirage's own and grit his teeth, bracing himself for the impact.

_This is gonna hurt._

The piping whistle grew swiftly louder, culminating in bright light and sound.

Then suddenly, there was nothing. 


	4. Don't Stand Him Up

**Title:** Five Times Ratchet Blew Up (and One He Didn't)  
**Characters:** Ratchet, Wheeljack  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** 5 times that Ratchet blew up, both literally and figuratively.

* * *

**4) Don't Stand Him Up**

Bluestreak nervously peered around the corner. Intellectually, he knew that he'd be found eventually. Physicals were mandatory for everyone on board...

A hand clamped down onto Bluestreak's shoulder and the young mech felt a sinking premonition of doom fall upon him.

"Bluestreak."

Slowly, Blue turned to face Ratchet.

"Uh... hi Ratchet. Funny meeting you here... eheh."

Ratchet stared down at Bluestreak disapprovingly.

"What are you doing here when you should be in my med bay?"

Bluestreak's head dipped unhappily.

"Well, there was this thing, and then Blaster called and then-"

"Bluestreak."

Ratchet straightened up to his full height, glowering down at his errant patient. His finger pointed down accusingly.

"Never. _Ever_. Miss your physicals. Because I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN."

Bluestreak's door wings wilted in response to Ratchet's thundering roar, falling practically parallel to his back.

"Y-yessir." 


End file.
